I was going to share some Japanese comedy with you for this most special fourteenth day of Domo ArigaDIE!!!-infused content. The video was deleted by our own world’s crushing monolith of entertainment, Youtube. However, thanks to Youtube, I was able to find another video by a performer who has managed to scrape the brains of so many listeners, myself included. So, are you ready to have your brains fried, dipped in alien murmurs? I hope so. That’s why you’re here, right? That’s why I urge you to click the Ami Yoshida video above. Prepare the drills, nails, screws, and saws. If you’re really really ready, strap on your headphones and click THIS.

Yoshida-san works with her voice. Her voice is her musical tool, her fountain of croaks, gurgles, squeals, and flutters. You’ve never heard anyone like Ami Yoshida. She does not saw the air in screams like Eye from the Boredoms, nor does she blast you with voice noise as Mike Patton was brilliantly wont to do years back. No, instead, Yoshida-san sneaks up on through tiny quiet moments of vocalized clangs, rips, drips. Her intensity is the restraint and inhumane horror of her manipulated voice. Listening to Yoshida-san is listening to a person turning into an Other. It is listening to a voice on the fringe (beyond the fringe) of voice. It’s a voice that creaks and whines, stutters across harsh surfaces. A scraping voice of transcendence. The inverse of a voice.

So, though we’ve ditched the comedy (for now), you’ve been witness to Yoshida-san’s work. And for that, you’ve allowed a tiny vocal bug to creep up into your ear and burrow on the underside of your brain, dear reader. Don’t worry. The pain will pass. Keep listening. Listen again. You want more echoes and scratches, yes? That’s the bug speaking to you. It’s your friend.